War-scarred children wary of those who claim to bring freedom

April 8 2003

In the dust and debris that litter the highways stand the children of Iraq. They are unwashed, with outstretched hands, begging for water or food or just attention. At times it seems like all one sees and hears on the roads across the south are these children.

"You give me smoking," one will call. "Mister, water. Mister," says another, tilting a thumb to his mouth. Some simply point at their stomachs. When soldiers bringing aid or reporters asking questions stop, the children swarm. When the outsiders leave, they grow angry.

United States and British armies came to Iraq expecting to be greeted as liberators as they freed the Iraqis from an oppressive regime. What they found was more complicated.

The people, like their landscape, are beaten down, destitute and scarred. Add to that the pervasive psychology of abandonment that has become ingrained since the 1991 Gulf War, when a coalition army hastily left the battlefield after Western leaders exhorted the Iraqis to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein.

The intense mistrust and apprehension only begins to explain the wary reception the US and British forces receive, having returned to this forbidding desert with a promise, still unfulfilled. Nowhere are the conflicting emotions more evident than in the behaviour of the children, who only know a country that has suffered the effects of a decade of sanctions, which their Government has taught them to blame on the US.");document.write("

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"You will leave now?" said Fathma, 6, after being given a cracker biscuit. She wore a blue jumper, her hair pinned with a clasp but blown loose by the wind. Of course the answer was yes, the outsiders were leaving, but it was obvious she knew that already. The boys turn to anger more quickly. A week ago some waved while others screamed. Now many throw stones and make obscene gestures.

"They have nothing to do, nowhere to go," said Sadek Hamzi, father of three. "There is no school and no authority."

Many adults have been staying in their homes as the young men who loot and rob with impunity increasingly own the streets. But the children, being children, do not want to be cooped up.

British soldiers organised a soccer match in Zubayr, just south of Iraq's second-largest city, Basra, last week, and lost to

a group of young Iraqis.

The hope was to establish trust, but the games have been suspended. "It is too dangerous," said Abdullah, who attended but did not play.